


the curves of your lips rewrite history.

by incalyscent



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 60's, 80's, Ancient Egypt, English Renaissance, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Gen, Gratuitous use of italics, Historical References, Identity Porn, Implied Past Relationships, Italian Renaissance, Lowercase, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Shakespeare Quotations, Slow Burn, Victorian, basically aziraphale chilling with gays through history, but a speed run, including crowley, italics for dialogue, local poet does prose, no beta we die like men, playing fast and loose with history, ptolemic egypt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 18:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20213998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incalyscent/pseuds/incalyscent
Summary: he watches people get stoned to death for love.  hung for love.  crucified for love.  why - these creatures, imbued by light -whywould they do their creator such a disservice?  didn’t she create them to love and be loved?he is fascinated by them.  all of them.  and he is afraid for them.  he wants to fold his wings over them, protect them.  give them a home and a family that they lost for a simple, holy thing such as love.  and such was the basis of aziraphale’s new identity.a principality was to protect.  to guide.  and that he shall do.  wrap himself up in identity and love those who lose for love.he doesn’t notice the way crawly looks at him.





	the curves of your lips rewrite history.

**Author's Note:**

> the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. **the curves of your lips rewrite history.**
> 
> -oscar wilde, _the picture of dorian grey._

**the eastern gate, 4004 bc.**

_ some of them will be different, you know _ she had said, once. back when aziraphale could light the sword, back when he still had the purpose to wield it. back when he had four faces and four wings and four walls to guard. back when she still spoke to him. aziraphale lifts his many eyes to the burning sun.

“what do you mean, different?”

the heavens are quiet for a long while. so long he thinks that she has left him again. then the light rains down again and he squints up into it. _ you will know _ is all she says, and then she leaves him on the gate, feeling horrible in his holiness.

-

aziraphale loses two wings after he loses the sword. his demotion is painless. it’s devine. it’s all part of god’s plan, to leave him to wander the earth, blessing humanity under holy order.

it doesn’t take him long to realize what different meant.

he watches people get stoned to death for love. hung for love. crucified for love. why - these creatures, imbued by light - _ why _ would they do their creator such a disservice? didn’t she create them to love and be loved?

he is fascinated by them. all of them. and he is afraid for them. he wants to fold his wings over them, protect them. give them a home and a family that they lost for a simple, holy thing such as love. and such was the basis of aziraphale’s new identity.

a principality was to protect. to guide. and that he shall do. wrap himself up in identity and love those who lose for love.

he doesn’t notice the way crawly looks at him.

-

**thebes, 1476 bc.**

the complection that aziraphale chose was not meant to withstand so much sun. the complection he had been given, rather, but the lord does as she does. ra is a merciless creation, beating down on him, blistering his skin. but he is here for a blessing, and he covers himself in as much linen to block out a foreigner's god to ride across the desert.

sceptre nome is vast and its city large, and aziraphale is easily lost in its eastern thrum. the corneration is on everyone’s tongue, fast and furious. there was _ talk _, about a woman on the throne. it is not often that the gods choose one as their vessel. and yet still aziraphale brings gifts, saddled to his horse, to give as a blessing. he was sent to steer her into the valley of good, so that egypt may follow in her footsteps.

it’s only a few miracles to convince the guards to let him into the corneration hall, another to make any servants pay him no mind. the gifts he’s brought are gold and lapis, obsidian glittering in the torchlight. outside the window, civilization, the first one to be called civil, bustled to ready itself for its new queen. aziraphale poaches a date from the serving table, savouring the taste, leaden on his tongue, until he hears footsteps coming from deep within, sandals on sand on sandstone.

she is a sandstorm in sheer linen. a lightning strike in black khol. her skin is the fertile nile earth, and her eyes the blazing rage of ra. sekhmet controls her limbs, wily grace, and sobek is in her smile, razor sharp, even as her eyes land on aziraphale. he suddenly feels underdressed, but it has nothing to do with his clothes. he drops to his knees, and pushes the nagging voice of god telling him an angel should not bow. she hasn’t spoken to him in eons, now.

“my queen,” he says, and she spits back _ king _ so fast aziraphale feels the world spin, if only for a moment.

“beg your pardon,” and he doesn’t say it with disdain, but her eyes burn him. she’s so bright he can barely look at her, feels like a kicked dog with the way his eyes cannot meet hers.

_ i am the vessel of ra. i am your pharaoh. _

he can only look at her for as long as he can the sun but he sees it now; the beard, the scepter, the green painted over her eyes. she took one crown and traded it for another. she took the voice of god as her own.

aziraphale isn’t allowed to hand her the gifts he brought. she watched him like a hawk, and he can’t help but watch the way she holds herself; head raised, shoulders up, like a warrior. _ king _, he thinks, and his mind can think of nothing else for as long as he’s in her presence, and in the many millenia afterwards.

“my king, may you rule your country well,” he says, and she lowers her head and aziraphale is reminded of ammit, grinning maw ready to eat his unworthy heart.

_ i plan on nothing less. _

-

hatshepsut goes on to be one of egypt’s finest rulers. aziraphale never went to see her again, but he thought about her often. he watches her rule, watches her turn from khepera, to ra, and then to atum. watches her successor try and wipe her from existence. watches that empire crumble to another. in her memory, aziraphale makes an effort. a belly button, a pair of nipples, and a budding lotus flower between his legs.

-

**alexandria, 47 bc.**

_ caesar may have conquered the gauls, but nicomedes conquered caesar. _

those words, and ruckus laughter, pulls aziraphale’s gaze away from where a woman works, weaving linen on a loam. he turns, and doesn’t see her eyes follow him. he doesn’t need to guess what the metaphor stands for; he can see it in the lilt of the soldier’s bodies, the knifish curl of their lips.

aziraphale hasn’t met caesar. he probably won’t. he doesn’t know which side to take in this horrendous war, so he doesn’t take any, and for some reason that feels more like a sin than it has any right to be. he has no direction. he doesn’t know which way to step forward, so he doesn’t move at all.

he’s not sure what to think about the romans; he hasn’t since they rose to power and snatched the land surrounding their origin. spread up and out and took and took, clenched a fist around cultures they’ll never fully understand. egypt was one of those, and aziraphale watches her people struggle against them without being able to get their footing. it’s a special place for aziraphale, and he’s reluctant to leave, even as civil war looms closer and closer like anubis.

he doesn’t like the soldiers. he likes less of how they speak ill of their general for who he loves, how he chooses to do so. still, it’s not his place to get involved, he wouldn’t know how to. even if he knew what to do. instead he clears his throat, and a barrel of pigment shatters in a spectacular display, staining their white clothes garish blue. they shout and scurry off, and when aziraphale turns his eyes back to the woman she is choking on a laugh, so he grins at her.

_ romans have strange views _, she tells him idly. cloth unwinds from her like she’s a spider making a home.

“quite,” azriaphale says softly.

-

later, much later, after caesar has fallen to the anger of his brethren, aziraphale sees crawly in a crowd. he is lavish in dark, translucent fabric, drinking wine, long hair curled. he is with a couple of women who pay him very little mind, more interested in one another. aziraphale thinks only for a moment of having his weight on top of him, and something forgein curls in the pit of his stomach. it’s not a feeling god bestowed upon him. shame was never supposed to grow within him.

-

**golgotha, 33 ad.**

_ what was it he said that got everyone so upset? _

“be kind to one another.”

_ yeah. that’ll do it. _

aziraphale has known crowley for two thousand years. and he can smell love out like fresh water in a desert. and what is grief but love, dying? crowley reeks of it now, where her slitted eyes are trained on the body hoisted onto the cross, only ebbs and wanes with every flinch that rolls through her body. it rubs aziraphale raw, makes him ache with her.

_ i showed him all the kingdoms of the world. _

and aziraphale knows it’s more than that. he also knows that crowley will never talk about it, and they’re too different right now, even if it feels like something with teeth is trying to pull out azriaphale’s ribs one by heavenly one. there’s something in him, some primal part that existed before the fall and will exist until the end times, that wants to reach a wing out and press it around crowley’s shoulders, to bring her in a try to perform some sort of miracle that will make her stop hurting.

even for an angel, there’s no real way to mend a broken heart.

-

when aziraphale see crowley again eight years later, he’s different than he was when he last saw him. glasses cover his eyes. he hides at his table, curled in on himself, and takes a tone with aziraphale that he hadn’t heard previously. he is hurting. he is breaking, either his heart or his ties with hell, mourning divinity that he’ll never swallow again. aziraphale invites him for oysters, and the smile he gets in return feels like being dunked in the ocean.

\- 

**milan, 1496.**

aziraphale looks up, the smell of paint thick and domineering in the air. he can basically taste the lead, sticky and slow in his throat, and maybe he turns off his lungs, just for a little bit. there’s the sound of someone shuffling to a stop behind him, and even though his collar is starched stiff aziraphale swivels his head to look.

the painter has eyes older than aziraphale’s first feather, and a smile like a shy moth.

“are you the artist?” aziraphale says, even though he knows the answer. da vinci inclines his head politely.

_ sì, but, _ he puts down his instruments, looks up into the coloured light of the chapel, _ who is asking? _

“just an admirer,” aziraphale says. the painting is almost finished, jesus and his disciples spread out at a long table, the colours bright, poisonous. jesus looks whiter than aziraphale remembers. the woman on his right looks oddly familiar.

_ ah, hopefully not one that admires too closely _, says the painter. aziraphale stiffens. he’s aware of the guard harassing this man, and maybe, on more than one occasion, miracled something more pressing for them to deal with.

instead of commenting, he says “the woman here, she looks like someone i know,”

_ dear friend of mine _ . _ in likeness, at least _ . the smell of paint fills the air. _ now, please excuse me _.

and aziraphale does, with a polite nod and a sidestep. outside the chapel it’s muggy, and aziraphale doesn’t even have to close his eyes to reimagine crowley’s red hair, the glisten of his freckles, the downward sulk of his lips.

-

later, much, much later, aziraphale will see the sketch hanging in crowley’s flat and _ wonder _.

-

**london, 1595.**

“so they’ll be in love?”

_ they will be. _

“and the people won’t think anything less of him?”

_ of course, they will. but this is a story for another time, my love. maybe, in some future far from here, they will look at him as a hero, and not as a tragedy. _

aziraphale blinks the tears back, holds the manuscript in his hands. he turns over the pages, leaf by leaf, can smell the divinity of the words not yet spoken aloud by mortal lips. in this, love is love. in this, the bard imagines a future in which there is no affection written in sin.

“will you not be punished for this?”

his darling william turns his face to the sun, where it filters, bitter and cold, through the london clouds. he smiles.

_ perhaps. but is it art if you do not say something with it? if it has no voice? _

already, when aziraphale skims the pages, richard has a sharp face and a long body and guarded eyes, and he wants to weep for him. he knows he will watch him played out as a villainous creatine (and good god above, maybe he was, for aziraphale didn’t much care for the fourteen-hundreds) but it wasn’t for this.

“are you _ sure, _ my dear?”

_ as sure as i am of anything. i am willing to wait _

so was aziraphale. he was willing to wait.

-

_ show us the hand of god / that hath dismissed us from our stewardship. _

-

**london, 1895.**

“but, dear-”

aziraphale does his best not to choke. there’s a pit inside of him, opening up, yawning cold and vicious like the atlantic. oscar’s face is impassive, and it makes him feel that much worse that he’s a wreck. this injustice hurts him, right where his heart should be, and maybe, just this once, he should have taken gabriel’s advice not to get attached.

“my dear, you’ll go to jail.”

_ only if i lose _.

aziraphale knows he’ll lose. and he’s not trying to be pessimistic, he just knows how much everyone _ hates _ people like them. how cruel it can be, sometimes. the gentleman’s club had helped itch away the loneliness that had hatpinned itself to him after crowley had left, and now, he sits in front of his only close friend while he chooses to face the court himself.

“oscar-”

_ don’t tell me to leave. _

so aziraphale doesn’t. he opens his mouth to say it, but he doesn’t. there’s a kind of mourning he already feels in the pulse of his wrists that wants to reach out, touch, hold, but he doesn’t. already, he has a collection of first editions back home that he will love until their covers fall off, and then miraculously don’t. it’s mourning; it’s frustration. how _ unfair _ it is, that they must live like this, hiding and humouring whatever human lords over them.

aziraphale lifts his eyes skyward, and some of the iron hold he has on faith slips through his fingers like sand.

“you’ll at least come for tea, before you go?”

a chuffed laugh is his only response. 

-

he sets out two cups and only fills one, and he’s not sure who he _ really _wants to fill the space next to him. oscar dies five years later, and crowley doesn’t wake up, not for anything. loneliness is something he learns goes hand in hand with being who he is, something he wishes he could claw out of his chest when is settles so heavy upon his lungs. 

-

**soho, 1967.**

“you go too fast for me, crowley.”

because he read the news. because he could have it. crowley says _ anywhere you want to go _ and aziraphale sees the garden. he sees a new birth of a kinder world and it’s not going to get there overnight but _ by good god _ it is _ getting _ there. he sees picnics in saint james’ park. he sees warm dinners, friendly touches, chatting into the night. he sees kisses and late night drives, just _ being _ with someone without being afraid. but he’s also seen how _ cruel _the world is.

and it _ terrifies _ him.

he doesn’t know who he is without crowley. and that scares him and for a good reason. crowley is a demon. even if he looks heavenly with the pink halo the neon gives him, and the pout of his lip, and the gentle curve of his eyebrows. even if the pressure in his chest feels like absolution, like a new star starting in the middle of him.

he’s scared, so he runs.

-

**london, 1985.**

aziraphale doesn’t know how he got here, but the food is good.

something about pulling masses of people to the light, something about the grace of heaven, something about divinity. aziraphale doesn’t pay much attention in meetings anymore. he is a panther, declawed; a guardian of only one thing it’s no longer the gates. still, he does as duty calls.

they say it’s the most ambitious rock concert of its era. the last concert aziraphale had been to was sometime in the eighteen-hundreds, and things had changed so much in those hundred years. he can hear thousands of voices, lifted in joy, and it almost reminds him of before the fall; angels singing before any of them lost their voices.

he’s blessing the artists before the go up stairs, just simple _ good luck! _ ’s or other miniscule puffs of encouragement. the next singer catches his eye, though, something hardlined and familiar about his face, the white tank top, the jeans. there’s a lot of love, so much that he can’t tell what it’s for, but he opens his mouth and speaks and _ that’s _ when aziraphale recognizes him, from his voice. he raises a hand.

“mister mercury?”

there’s about three guards advancing on him as soon as the words leave his mouth, and he cowers, much too soft now to be a vengeful warrior of god. but mercury looks him up and down just once, and flourishes a wrist, and says _ he’s okay _ because just from looking at him he _ knows _.

“sorry, excuse me, i just wanted to say-” aziraphale has to stand up on his toes to see over the shoulders of the guards, to see the toothy smile of the man about to go on stage- “i just wanted to say that my best friend _ loves _ your work.”

mercury’s eyes turn knowing, half lidded and leery. _ your best friend, eh? _

aziraphale pales, and then colours, because everyone in his circle knows what a _ best friend _is these days. “not - not like that.” as much as he wishes.

_ when you tell him you love him, i’ll sign something for you _. and then he winks, and climbs the stairs.

-

that never happens, because aziraphale never grows the guts to cut ties from heaven, still holding onto some shred of hope that they’ll become something better than they are, and because freddie dies six years later.

the aids crisis rocks aziraphale to his core, because no one would _ help _ them. his bookstore becomes a place of refuge; many a disgraced youth found themselves on his couch, in his spare room that he didn’t have until the first bloody teen showed up on his doorstep, out of options. they may not have gentlemen’s clubs anymore but aziraphale would be damned if he was going to let anyone feel like they don’t deserve some sort of love, no matter how fleeting.

the few times crowley is over during the whole thing, he looks drained. he never takes his glasses off. he looks at those kids as they come and go and he smiles but he looks sad. there are things between them that have never needed saying. things that won’t ever be said. for once, just once, aziraphale wants to reach out and hold his hand without worrying what it means. for once he knows the answer but he doesn’t want it.

-

**tadfield, 2019.**

_ you can stay at my place, if you like _.

and aziraphale wants it, he wants it so much and he’s losing the grasp he has on _ why _ he’s been scared of it for so long. why he let the strings of heaven pull his joints for so long, allowed it to move him where he did not want to go forward. still, he tries one more time, one _ last _time.

_ you don’t have a side anymore. _

and he doesn't he’s stuck in the middle of a sliding scale that goes to two sides he doesn’t want to see. so he goes. and he holds crowley’s hand on the bus and doesn’t talk about the tremour in it because crowley doesn’t comment on his own. they get to crowley’s flat and he doesn’t really sleep but he lies with him, and he can tell that crowley never even shuts his eyes but they’re there and they’re keeping each other warm and it feels like step across some sort of line. one they’d been toeing since the years started being counted. each breath that lands on his ears sounds like each moment he missed, smells like hot sand, tastes like the crisp english air. tomorrow, if they both live, they’ll have the time. and aziraphale doesn’t know what he wants to do with that but _ everything _.

-

when aziraphale finally kisses crowley, it’s like absolution, the purest holy water and the greatest fires of hell, put out. it feels better than heaven and better still than turning his back on them, and crowley’s jaw in the palm of his hand feels better and more dangerous than any blade he’d ever wielded. he’d wait another thousand years if he knew that it would feel like filling the hole god put in his chest, that cavern she’d put there. _ some of them will be different, you know _ . and they are. and he _ is _ . and they’re beautiful, all of them, because there is something so raw about wanting for so long and finally _ having _.

still, he lets crowley go when he pulls back, his eyes wide and wild, even behind his glasses.

_ i don’t want to go too fast for you, _ he gasps out, shrinking away. aziraphale lets him take a step back, but he holds his wrist, brings it to his lips, kisses the tips of crowley’s fingers, the inside of his wrist and watches his eyes turn skyward, the flash of teeth before he tucks his lower lip between them.

“you haven’t. oh, you _ never _ have,” he says. crowley shuts his eyes. “i have been so scared for so long. i must have hurt you so, so badly, my dear.”

crowley doesn’t say no, or yes, or anything at all, but he does _ look _ at him, and aziraphale can _ just _ see the poisonous yellow through the tinted glass. it’s tender, and understanding, and so full of _ love _ and aziraphale forgets to breathe for longer than he ever has, only starting up again when his heart kicks against his chest.

“now, we have some catching up to do, i believe,” he says, just to distract himself from how breathless he’s gotten, “when did you say you fell in love with me again?”

_ the wall. in eden. you were different. didn’t hate me. _

“so, six thousand years?”

_ six thousand years. _

“it’s as good a day as any to start.”

crowley’s mouth twists, and for once it’s upwards, and he lets aziraphale take his glasses off to kiss him properly, and aziraphale never made a star but crowley tells him later what it felt like. he’s feeling that now, like he’s making something that will only die after his last word has been wiped from this earth, something people will see long after they’ve both gone. something a long time in the making, something woven around harrowing pits and a vast unknown but still strong and beautiful and bright, even though the earth still turns.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways this was titled AZIRAPHALE IS THE GUARDIAN PRINCIPALITY OF THE GAYS SEND TWEET for almost the entire draft. god bless
> 
> incalyscent-writes.tumblr.com


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